Have you Googled yourself today? Your professional future may depend on it!
If you’re still smarting from the humiliation caused by your MySpace page, riddled with photos that may not show you in your best light, it may be time to consider a rebranding. I have never interviewed anyone for a job, who I didn’t Google first. You can rely on potential employers in this day and age to do the same thing. So here are a few simple steps to repair your professional image online within a month.
Pimp your LinkedIn page. For the most part, LinkedIn is a passive professional network that we only engage in if we need it – while we’re job hunting. Well, you should always – especially in this economy – be prepared to job hunt, so start repairing your online brand by pimping your LinkedIn page. Set aside an hour a week for the next few weeks. In the first week add contacts to your professional network. Next week explore the widgets you can add to profile to draw people’s attention to your professional merits. Add your blog, a SlideShare presentation and join professional groups on LinkedIn whose affiliations will show up on your profile. Spend the last hour in the final week, recommending your favorite people in your network and then ask them to return the favor.
Join the club. Exploring various social networks will help give you insight that will make you an asset on the job and help to bump up the number of legitimate online mentions of your name. StumbleUpon and Digg are my favorite news-sharing sites. Both offer toolbars for your browser to make sharing what you read online easy. Kirtsy is the same thing, but targets news for women. Also consider Plaxo, which is a career site like LinkedIn, but with some fancy contact and calendar syncing capabilities. Choose one network a week and spend some time at night, in front of the TV exploring each one until you get the hang of it and you can move on to the next.
Find your place in the blogosphere. Blogging is not for everyone. But, I happen to know a lot of military wives who have incredible voices and get a lot out of speaking them online, in a compelling and professional manner. If you don’t think you have a voice to share (yet!) become a reader of professional blogs (sorry Perez) and become a commenter. Leaving your name in an astute comment of a highly trafficked blog is a great way to help your tarnished online brand. This is also some thing that you don’t have to spend a lot of time on to get great results. Chances are you read these blogs all the time anyways!
Photo by: Kristina B
